I received a WhatApps message from a friend who was struggling with the word “healing” as her mind perceived it as being connected to sickness and hence needing “healing”. She went further in requesting me if there was another similar word that I could offer to ease her mind. Obviously from what I read, the word “sickness” is something that she is having difficulty with and not “healing”. From my conclusion of the message,I saw a pattern which many of us, including myself have – wishing to change what is in our experience to something more pleasant so as to escape from the discomfort that is plaguing in our mind at that moment. In this case, it is just a word, yet it can have such great impact on us, not to mention experiences that are really happening in our own lives or among our closed ones. Sometimes even happenings that has no direct connection with us can influence our state of mind.
Anyway, instead of seeking for a new word to replace the word ‘healing’ I invited her to find out the true meaning behind that word so that she need not face the stress or negativity of mind each time this word come into her experience. I pointed out that peace can only be achieved by facing what troubles us instead of moving away from it. The following was what I wrote [revised]:
There is no necessity to change the word except to redefine our perception about it so that when the mind gets it right, the miracle of undoing takes place on its own hence reinstating what is true from false. “Cure” is to fix what is unwanted whereas “heal” is to reinstate back what was in its wholeness. Thus “cure” is working on its effect whereas “heal” is to see its cause. Usually heal is directing towards the mind as all sicknesses are derivative of the mind when error is not seen and that is when sickness arises. Thus when one heals the mind, that is when correction takes place in the now of what was once an error. It is to “see” rightly instead of mistaking it.
She replied with thanks for the discernment and also for correcting her error in perceiving that healing was synonymous to curing. And to bring her to realise directly, I also pointed out that now she is healed from the word “heal” which in the beginning was causing a kind of sickness to her mind which she experienced as “struggle”. Many of us seldom see the little stresses in our mind as the beginning of mental sicknesses unless and until it creates serious discomfort in the mind or even manifest themselves as physical sicknesses. We are numbed to the constant plaguing of discomfort only noticing it when we are at the limit of our threshold – many a times such stresses would have come to a full blown depression or arise as psychosomatic illnesses.
Now the lesson does not end there. I also brought to mind an important learning which many of us do not realise – and that is about realising how the mechanics of cause and effect conditions our mind. We always think the world is in conflict with us, which in reality is untrue as our perception about the world is the one causing our conflict. We think the cause is out there and hence our reaction or effect is because of it. Yet this is delusional because if that is so, we are a victim to everything we come into contact and that can indeed be a stressful living having to constantly chase after change, or choosing, or even seeking, to feed our needs instead of acknowledging what is it that we are not seeing that is causing us the chase. When we notice the dynamics of our mind in relation to the world we come into full comprehension that the cause has always been in the mind of each beholder and the effect, which is the world we see or experience. We are the creator of the world so to speak instead of victim of the world.
To realise this is to put the law of cause and effect in its true perspective. Only in this way, can we slowly disentangle the many unresolved knots within our lives that are causing us the freedom that we have longed for. It is a sure journey forward to find the Truth of what we are.
The World is Over, Long Gone
Just the other day when I was having dinner with my friend, two persons walked over to our table – a lady holding a few packets of tissue together with a visually impaired man beside her – obviously requesting us to assist in purchasing the tissue to support their living. I already saw them earlier at a nearby table and a thought pop in my mind that it would be a matter of time before they approach us.
As they finally came by, without further ado, I picked up the wallet from my pocket and chose a big note in exchange for a packet of tissue. It was an attitude that I have determined from the past and trained myself not to question the motive of the request as and when it appears before me, acknowledging fully that it is my own wish to give unconditionally without being plagued by thoughts of doubts. And if ever any of such thoughts were to arise, it is about my mind that I have to address and not what is been projected outside of it. What is seemingly outside, as I remind myself constantly, is merely my own thought put onto it.
What surprised me a moment later is the inner dialogue that came out from that act. The guilt of giving too much and the uncertainty of what I have just done plagued my mind into distress. It was a brief moment of uneasiness as I looked at the mind that was in tussle, trying to find ways to justify the act. Regret was one of the obvious unquestioned emotion together with a myriad of associated feelings with it. It was a case of betrayal, more correctly, a self-betrayal – feeling betrayed towards myself for the amount I handed out. As before in such situation, it has always been a norm to console myself by justifying the act, imagining that they needed the money more than me, or by refuting or admonishing my own mistake; and if all of such doesn’t work, a series of mindless guilt and punishment comes to place. It is interesting to notice how the mind works, or more accurately, delusion – trapped in a whirlpool of meanings of entanglements.
Just as about the plot seemed to get thicker, a glimpse of light of understanding shined through the mind as Wisdom reminded me one more time that both moments are not at all connected in any way, though it seems to be a consecutive leading on moment. It unravelled me the understanding that the moment of giving is simply an act of unconditionality and it has since long gone as quickly as it came. The next moment of regret, had nothing at all to do with the earlier act, as it too came and gone at that moment; the latter seemingly meeting the former and parting once again. The regret was merely a memory, a shadow or an ancient thought that was held back in the past, surfaced and joining into the moment to be freed and gone forever, to be forsaken. And that is exactly all it was, a pleasant remembering and a conscious wakefulness and understanding so not to perpetuate it’s meaning and thus consciously releasing it so as not to return again.
Every moment of what arises in the mind is but old unresolved meanings that we have harboured and not released. And if I were to believe in it, I am only securing another future similar incident to spark that meaning to meet me again – in fact that is why it arose again of a past I did not choose correctly to see it as a memory. The experience I had with what was outside me was not relevant at all to my peace as to what comes up within me. My outside experience is by and large defined by my inner perception, and thus is not always to my best interest, though I think I am that. I thought getting upset is to my best interest, yet it is not. I thought desiring my experience is to my best interest, yet it is also not. What arise from the mind is just what I have addicted myself to, re-experiencing it unknowingly until waking up from it one fine day.
“The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone has no effects. Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.” – ACIM, The Present Memory.
Do read an awesome related entry: Living Memory
I Have No Time for Myself
Is it true? For the first time this statement which I recently heard from a close friend seems to sound a little strange, and probably, ridiculous to me. Not that I had never made such a statement in the past, but now with a little deeper understanding of my own mind and also the realisation that came my way these few years, it occurred to me that I had never, ever left myself – so how could it be possible that I do not have time for myself? Time entirely defined me as that is what I am experiencing; else the meaning of time will be totally meaningless to me.
When I am with someone, I am there with the person; as such I “myself”, is experiencing time together with the person. I cannot be with the person and at the same time not there myself – it is impossible – for while being with the person, I can only experience my own experience with the person – I cannot experience him or her, except myself. If I don’t like the experience while with the person, that is exactly what I am experiencing. If I enjoy being with the company, that too is exactly what I am experiencing – in both situations, I am constantly experiencing myself about the person, never of the person. As such, I am having time with myself in the midst with another.
What is more true when I say “I have no time for myself” is that I am all the while paying attention to another instead of noticing my own involvement in another. When I subject my attention to another, I lose myself, so to speak, thus having the meaning that I am not giving enough time for myself – it is an unconscious habitual decision which most of us have yet to realise.
If I am fully aware of my own mind, I am able to be present to the internal process of interaction or responses of what is going on in my mind and what is perceived as coming from the other. When I am noticing this, I am totally being with myself in the midst of with another. One may ask how could it be possible to give attention to another while being with oneself? How could it not be possible considering that we are indeed encountering part of the experience which has to include me, unless our attention is fully 100% on the person and 0% on ourselves? Even that is impossible as we never and will never experience any moment without ourselves in it. It is more of I am oblivious to myself but not away from myself.
As in many situations, for example driving, we are not giving full 100% attention to the road as we may be listening to the radio, looking at someone or even thinking about a situation. If we are able to divide our attention at the same time, it can never be an issue dividing attention between ourselves and also another. It just takes a little training and adjustment. Attention giving is a function of the mind. Direct it and it will work for you.
After all have been said, whether you give attention to yourself or not, you are experiencing every moment of your time, albeit in an unconscious unknowing. When you wake up one day to what is truly happening in your space, you would have noticed you are having time for yourself only 100% all the time, irrelevant whether you are aware or not. Until then, being unconscious, you will try to find time for yourself, probably going for a holiday, or giving yourself a me time – whatever you do, it is no different from any moment than before; as wherever you go or do for yourself, your attention is still out there somewhere…